Scott Rochfort

CBD has never seen the mining billionaire Clive Palmer move so fast. The living national treasure has finally got around to signing-off and filing the 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 financial year accounts for his mineral exploration and horse stud company Mineralogy.

It might have been a column by BusinessDay'sMichael West in late March that helped jog Palmer's memory that he had not got around to lodging Mineralogy's accounts to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission since 2002.

The accounts, which were signed off on March 30 and finally processed yesterday, show that Mineralogy reported a $11.4 million loss for the year to June 30, 2011, largely thanks to $25 million being spent on exploration. The net assets for the billionaire's flagship business were just $83 million.

The failed Hong Kong IPO of Palmer's coalmining business Resourcehouse sucked up another $19.2 million in expenses.

The group's ''biological assets'' (not including Palmer) were valued at $4.3 million.

''Biological assets represent horses used for harness racing and breeding of horses for harness racing,'' the accounts noted. Palmer's aircraft expenses were $3.5 million for the year.

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As for Palmer's bottom-of-the-ladder Gold Coast United club, which has been dumped from the A-League, the value of the Football Federation Australia licence Palmer's club bought for $1 million fell to zero in 2010, well before there was any sign the club would be stripped of it.

The accounts for 2007 were not lodged. But the 2008 accounts showed that a $181.5 million profit was made in the year to June 30, 2007, thanks to the $286 million sale of a subsidiary.

TEN-FOUR, SMITHY

Don't be surprised if you see ANZ Bank chief executive Mike Smith loitering around a truck stop on the Hume Highway or even tooting on the horn in the cabin of a B-double sometime soon.

The bank has confirmed it plans to import into Australia the ANZ ''Truckometer'', which was recently developed by one of its senior economists in New Zealand, Sharon Zollner. The Truckometer monitors truck traffic volumes in the hope these will provide clues on the levels of economic activity.

''We are considering a similar type of research in Australia,'' an ANZ spokesman confirmed to CBD yesterday without going into specifics.

While the Truckometer in New Zealand is based on the data collected by the New Zealand Transport Agency, it is unclear what trucking volumes ANZ will track in Australia.

They could always monitor hamburger sales at truck stops across the eastern seaboard. Or even Bonds singlet sales.

NBN TRIP-UP

NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley is generally well-prepared when it comes to answering highly technical questions regarding the national broadband network. But there was one figure he did not have on hand when interviewed by the 2GB's Ben Fordham yesterday.

He was asked how much of the internet was used for business and how much for ''pleasure''.

Fordham: ''I think it is a fair question, and you should know the answer, shouldn't you? Is it 10 per cent business? Twelve per cent? Twenty per cent?''

Quigley: ''It is considerably higher than 10 per cent.''

Fordham: ''Well, what is it? You obviously have some figures because you just said it is higher than 10 per cent. So what do you understand the figure to be?''

Quigley: ''I couldn't tell you, Ben off the top of my head. I wouldn't give you a number.''

Fordham: ''But its more than 10 per cent?''

Quigley: ''Yes, most people would know it is more than 10 per cent.''

The NBN chief executive also copped plenty of criticism from one caller about the network that was probably new to him. The listener complained that 90 per cent of the contractors working on the roll-out of the network were foreigners. Even worse, they were Irish.

''Looking at the names on the trucks - they are all Irish contractors,'' complained the caller. ''I'm just saying that it is [not being] installed by Australians when it's the Irish.''